[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Thankfully the damage was minimal in MD.”] [/caption] Movies Paprika - When the week started I didn’t realize I’d be getting back into Satoshi Kon so hardcore. I actually put off watching it two weeks ago because I thought it would be scarier, but it turned out to not be so bad (and it was awesome). Made me put Perfect Blue at the top of the queue. More here. ...
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“378” caption=“It’s as weird and creepy as it looks.”] [/caption] Idol culture is weird. I mean, bizarre. It only just hit me while I was watching the opening of Perfect Blue that the main fans of these idol groups are men! The shitty, poppy, stupid J-Pop that is peddled throughout Japan by gaggles of over-cute women doing choreographed dances have male audiences. It’s so weird. I mean, in the states we have guys who perv over girl groups and female artists, but none of them would admit to being “fans”. ...
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“The titular character”] [/caption] I take great joy in watching the arc of an auteur’s style and career. Take Satoshi Kon. He’s had a relatively sparse directorial career that was tragically cut short due to pancreatic cancer, but there is a clear thread running through his work that I can trace from Perfect Blue all the way to Paprika (I’ve still yet to see Perfect Blue or Tokyo Godfathers, but they’re high on my list). Like Paranoia Agent before it, Paprika deals heavily with the subconscious/unconscious mind while also tying in the cinema history/construction of Millennium Actress. Dreams, reality, and obsession were also major themes of Perfect Blue, but I can’t speak to that without having seen it. ...